I am a huge fan of Greek mythology, so as soon as I saw this book exists, I had to read it. And it didn't disappoint. The writing is stunningly beautiful and the historical information was presented in such an enchanting way. I can't wait to read other works of the author.

I thoroughly enjoyed this brief dive into the history of Venus/Aphrodite. The length of the book made it particularly accessible and encouraged me to pick it up; I do wish more non-fiction followed this short, but in-depth format. Hughes travels through interpretations of Venus/Aphrodite in art, history and culture, her points often punctuated by the inclusion of a painting or relief. Her writing is clear, to the point and never patronises. This book is a great jumping off point for those wishing to know more about classical studies who don’t know where to start.

Aphrodite was first a fertility icon. Later an icon of fighting a warrior. Now we see her as the goddess of love. In this book we are told that trivializing Aphrodite may be to our detriment. Yes she has always symbolized desire, but she is much more than that. This book is a wonderful way to discover the true Aphrodite. Well written and has fantastic pictures.

An excellent exploration of the origins and evolutions of the goddess of love. I would love to read this type of biography of other deities. Hughes has found an engaging style that makes the deep dive into that ancient world both informative and enjoyable her passion for her subject making it all the more exciting for readers.

This was an interesting but ultimately, a little bit too brief exploration of Aphrodite/Venus throughout history. Following a chronological structure, we see the origins of the goddess through to how she is represented in modern day in art. I thought that the writing style was really accessible, which is always welcome in a non-fiction book and that the structure was a great contributing factor in this accessibility. I just wish that this was a bit more of a deep dive into the subject matter, as it seems to be an area that Bettany Hughes has long had a passion for, so it seems a shame that she didn't go into more detail here.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This little book is a short biography of the Venus/Aphrodite and explains how the perception of the goddess has shifted through time. It is a very quick and easy read, always accessible, and never dry. The author seems to be very knowledgable and passionate about the topic. I really enjoyed her writing style, at times it felt like she was telling Aphrodite's story to a good friend over a nice cup of coffee.
There is no background knowledge of Greek/Roman mythology needed in order to understand the book, the author keeps it light and doesn't go into too much detail. That's my only criticism, I think. I would have loved to read more and more depth. However, it was a very enjoyable read and I would highly recommend it.

I really wasn't sure what to expect going into this but I was pleasantly surprised. Although this is on the shorter side for a biography it is still packed full of art history, archaeology, and evidence that provides a wonderful history of Aphrodite. While the information is presented chronologically it also gives the reader insight as to how Aphrodite's image and reception evolved over time. This was very well researched, held my attention the entire time, and very intriguing. It's a great book for anyone who is interested in mythology.

I was not sure what to expect from this book, but it really delighted me. Hughes brings together documentary evidence, archeology, and art history in a very compelling and readable biography of Aphrodite. This was more of a popular history than an academic work, but the author cites her sources throughout, so it would be easy to dig in to more academic material if you desired.

The material is presented chronologically, and the reader sees how Aphrodite's reception and image has changed over time. Hughes is keen to note that this is often a reflection on the goddess' audience - as is so often the case with changing attitudes towards archetypal figures. Because Aphrodite was associated with women's desire (and the desirousness of women), we can look at interpretations and uses of Aphrodite as a signal to how feminine desire was seen more broadly - as natural, as prurient, or sinister.

In her conclusion, Hughes suggests that Aphrodite is still an important and highly legible figure in our art and culture. I would have liked to read more about this. But, this tome is short and sweet. It is an excellent introduction to the goddess. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Classical mythology, iconography, or mythology. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

"Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire," is a short cultural history of Aphrodite-Venus and the many incarnations of her throughout history, including being the Virgin Mary. I found the book interesting, well-written, and it was an excellent history book on Venus and the cultural impact.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Basic Books for an honest review.

A short, well researched and well written book about the goddess Aphrodite. There's plenty to learn and I loved the style of writing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Today Venus is one of the most well known Roman deities and her Greek counterpart Aphrodite isn't far behind. This book examines the origins and transformations of goddesses of fertility and warfare from Inanna, Astarte and Ishtar in the Middle East to Aphrodite in Cyprus. Their many aspects were worshiped and over time some gained prominence over others. Although Aphrodite retains her connection to violence it is her sexuality that gains in importance. That is the characteristic that carries through as Aphrodite becomes Venus and travels through the Middle Ages to the present.

Hughes presents a lot of information, but not always smoothly. The ancient history is more detailed and easier to follow, but from the Middle Ages on it became somewhat jumpy, with disconcerting gaps. Despite that there is plenty to learn here.

I was glad to find this book on NetGalley! I love mythology and discovering more about gods, goddesses, their history, what they become as time goes.

Aphrodite's history is fascinating to read. Her duality is there almost from the beginning of her "life": she is both sweet, charming, loving and destructive, dark, a killer. She is both a love goddess and a war goddess in a way. She is beauty and contention, desire and lust.

The reader learns a lot about Aphrodite-Venus's use in art, politics and History: she is portrayed in a certain way to deliver a certain message to the population - and, mostly to women. They get to see the evolution of her representation, of what she means. Her body is clothed in the beginning of her cult, then naked, then clearly exposed. She goes from an object of veneration to an object of desire and lust. She goes from goddess to whore, by way of the Virgin Mary when Christinity needed to shut down her cult, and so used her for their own.

The book was well-organised: the reader is gradually guided through Aphrodite-Venus's history, and gets to see her thanks to illustrations. I loved that some of them were present in the book to support what was written.

I also loved the conclusion: despite everything, despite patriarchy, despite slut-shaming and all that, Aphrodite-Venus left a mark and is still part of our lives today. She might still be used to objectify women, but she is also used to empower them.

This book is a beautifully written chronicle of the Greek goddess Aphrodite who had become Venus in Roman Empire.
Starting with her Middle-Eastern predecessors, Inanna and Ishtar, and citing the archaeological findings of her first forms in Cyprus, this is a very exciting book about the journey of Aphrodite and Venus from East to West, from iron age to modern day.
Myths and history go hand in hand in this thoroughly well researched book, with the beautiful images and representations of goddess through different ages.
It is easy to read thanks to the aptly named chapters which follow the chronological order and describe the transformations of the goddess through time and different geographies.
It was an enlightening read and I want to thank you to NetGalley and Basic Books for giving me access to this wonderful book.

This book is a great introduction to the goddess Aphrodite-Venus that we’ve all heard about before.

Venus and Aphrodite: A Biography of Desire is a new non-fiction book by Bettany Hughes. Unlike her previous titles, this one is briefer in its explanation of its topic. The book presents the story and meaning of Aphrodite-Venus through time, from its first appearance in history up to modern times. It covers an overview of what this goddess is associated with and the way it’s been viewed and used in societies in different parts of the world.

The language of this book is easily accessible to the general public. The book contains images of art to accompany the text. It also has references at the end. Since the book offers an introduction to the topic, these can be used by the reader to continue their journey of knowing more about this goddess. If you are new to the subject of this book, I would recommend this read. It offers an accessible overview for anyone to read. It is not detailed nor complex, since this isn’t its goal.

I would suggest this read to people who want to know how Aphrodite-Venus came to be and what that figure has meant before and what it means today.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

*This review will be posted on Goodreads and shared on Twitter. It will also be posted on Amazon Canada following its release.

Cover art: 5/5 so pretty

Aphrodite the goddess of sex! I leaned a lot of fun facts about Aphrodite & the way ancient Greeks thought about sex. It was a fascinating read and having pictures made it eve better.

This book was very well researched but a tad dry - I feel like Venus is such a juicy topic there was so much more entertainment and fun to be had. But overall it was a super quick read, about 200 pages and didn’t drag on too long. I was happy to learn more about a topic I knew very little of.

"Aphrodite-Venus, the heavenly, Paphian queen, is far more than just a gorgeous goddes of love; she is an incarnation of, and a guide through, the messy, troubling, quixotic, quickening business of mortal life."

i stumbled upon this book knowing the bare minimum about Aphrodite: the fact that she is the goddess of beauty and love, born out of a phallus thrown into the sea and ready to fight for her claim to absolute beauty ( Homer's Illiad).
and boiiii was i wrong.

this book has opened my eyes completely regarding this mistress of desire, that has become sexualised in such a way that people seem to forget that love is not always about sex. she is simply the goddess of human condition, of desires, wishes and ambition; the meddler goddess that cannot simply stay put and that slithers into every situation.

i loved the way she has been presented multiculturally, the way the image of her has changed through time, literature and art.

How they are as individuals and together (like one goddess). Pre-Christian into the 1900s. A look at how they were viewed and worshipped through the ages.

Aphrodite and Venus is both a history, and a love letter to the goddess Aphrodite.

It tells the tale of the Goddess Aphrodite (Venus) painted primarily through the gaze of her impact on the very humans who worshiped, admired or were otherwise infatuated with her.

This book definitely had many compelling moments though at times I felt the story would jump too quickly from one bit of information to the next leaving me struggling to catch up, though overall I enjoyed how the story was laid out.

I like how this delved deeper into the history, or the making of the goddess Aphrodite, and her characteristics of which before I only had a surface level understanding; knowing her only as the Greek Goddess of beauty and not much else.

I appreciated that the author gave her a voice and gave us a more in depth view on the goddess herself as well as the ways ancient societies viewed her, as well as, her impact on contemporary society and ideas of womanhood, sexuality, and femininity.

The author paints an interesting and vital picture; in that the more someone is mythologized the less human they become, thus opening their image up to be used for exploitation.

All in all though this book had its flaws it’s also enjoyable and perfect for people who are interested in ancient history, or just the goddess herself.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. It's a very easy-to-read, broad in scope, and interesting investigation into the history of a mysterious goddess from the classical world. The author knows her sources and how to use them well, which I appreciated, but many of the examples were too brief for my tastes and I wish she would've gone into more depth. However, I did appreciate the extensive bibliography, and I'll likely be taking up the author's suggestions for further reading. On the whole, an engaging read for anyone interested in Greek and Roman mythology.

Inanna. Ishtar. Astarte. Isis. Aphrodite. Venus. For thousands of years, she was worshipped across the Middle East and the Mediterranean, through Egypt, and north across the lands conquered by Rome. Over the centuries, her name changed, but her appeal never diminished: she was love incarnate, desire and despair, lust and beguilement and bittersweet longing and dread all mixed together. Only with the rise of Christianity and Islam did she begin to lose ground, but even then, she morphed into yet new forms … most notably as the mother of the God who had replaced her ….
Hughes’ Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World has been on my reading list for quite some time. When I came across an advance copy of Venus and Aphrodite on netgalley, though, it jumped right to the top of the list. Here at last, it seemed, was a serious history of the worship of an important Goddess, one too often dismissed by academics (and popular culture), but central to the practices of many polytheists today.
For the most part, Venus and Aphrodite did not disappoint. Hughes has penned an engaging, wide-ranging, and well-researched history of the Goddess. She charts devotion to the divinity all the way from Neolithic Cyprus, through ancient Sumer, through the Homeric Age and the spread of Hellenism, through the rise and expansion of Rome, through medieval Europe, the Renaissance, and finally into the modern era and the creation of “beauty culture.”
The insights the Hughes offers into devotion for Aphrodite, into human perceptions of the deity, are fascinating. Such as
We should remember that for these ancient communities the great goddess was not an optional extra, an idea that could be believed or dismissed; she was as real as the sky, as real as the sea. Without her, all was lost.
And also:
It was she who was believed to encourage the carnal, cultural, and emotional mingling of women and men, to inspire relationships across borders and boundaries. She made humans social beings and encouraged civic harmony.
Or here:
Once, she had been a champion of real women, but as the divine gloss of the goddess dulled, she was styled a mere woman [….] Aphrodite-Venus had become an agent not of elevation but of exploitation [….] a thinly veiled excuse for disturbing and degenerate sexism and racism.
Hughes’ discussion of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and of the Venus de Milo are, by themselves, worth the price of the book. Not to mention her scathing critique of Freud, and the parallels she draws between the myth of Aphrodite and Ares, and modern-day slut-shaming and revenge porn.
This is not a dry, weighty tome. Venus and Aphrodite is a popular history written by a serious academic. And make no mistake: I do not mean popular history as an insult. Quite the opposite. Books like this — written in an accessible manner by a scholar who knows what the heck she is talking about — serve an important function: they help bridge the gap between disciplines, and between scholars and laypeople. We can’t all keep abreast of the latest research and theories in physics, chemistry, palaeontology, genetics, et cetera; but we can read popular books that lay out those developments for us, allowing us to figure out their importance and how those impact our lives, our view of the world, and so on.
And so it is with Venus and Aphrodite, which can be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in art history, women’s history, the history of sex, gender studies, archaeology, classical history, medieval history, the film industry, religious studies, the history of Christianity, the evolution of modern polytheism, or philosophy, among other fields. Individuals new to polytheism or Goddess Spirituality will find Venus and Aphrodite especially useful, not just because Hughes so carefully lays out the evolution of the Goddess of Love, but because of the extensive bibliography she includes at the end. There are many, many more titles there which will lead people into an even more in-depth study.
I do have a few complaints. First, the book is very short: only about two hundred pages, a good twenty of which are the above-mentioned bibliography, plus endnotes. It can be easily read in a single day. The book also stops abruptly in the late nineteenth century, with a momentary segue into the late twentieth century: Hughes only briefly discusses the impact of the Venusian ideal on modern women, and the appearance of Aphrodite in such films as The Clash of the Titans. I feel like there is a lot more to discuss there, that the analysis could have been carried forward another century. Aside from a single reference to Warhol, there is no discussion of Aphrodite in modern art, and none at all of modern polytheism* (where there is plenty of devotion, desire, and art being created).
Despite those few complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed Venus and Aphrodite. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the fields mentioned above, as well as fans of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra: A Life; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt; and Kara Cooney’s The Woman Who Would Be King.
*For books which do deal with Aphrodite and modern polytheism, check previous publications by Laurelei Black and the forthcoming Pagan Portals: Aphrodite by Irisianya Moon.